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Commander - Basandra, Battle Seraph

Commander / EDH Multiplayer Pillow Fort RW (Boros)

JammerSoul

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Creature (24)

Instant (9)

Land (36)

Artifact (11)

Commander (1)

Commander: Basandra, Battle Seraph

Enchantment (13)

Sorcery (6)

Basandra rushes into battle in pursuit of the rush of combat. Her presence cuts through any who try to dishonor battles through underhanded tricks.

Basandra, Battle Seraph

Legendary Creature Angel

Flying

Players can't cast spells during combat.

: Target creature attacks this turn if able.

"Why listen to the mumblings of wizards when the lash speaks true?"

4 / 4

Plane: Unknown

On an unknown plane, Basandra rushes towards the battle for honor and glory. She is held in high regard by warriors who follow her and fight in pursuit of truth through battle, and she despises any who would resort to trickery in battle. [1]

Basandra, Battle Seraph is a 4 / 4 with Flying for and a . Furthermore, she has two additional abilities.

Basandra's first ability is:

Players can't cast spells during combat.

This ability shuts down combat tricks indefinitely while Basandra is on the battlefield. This renders cards like Fatal Push, Path to Exile, and Lightning Bold, null and void for opponents who want to use them to clear away bigger targets. This also prevents the use of pump spells like Berserk, and or abilities like Prowess which depend on those instant-speed tricks.

Basandra's second ability reads:

: Target creature attacks this turn if able.

A similar version to Goblin Diplomats's ability, except instead of requiring a tap to activate, we only need to pay , which can be paid whenever we want. This ability allows us to force our opponent's creatures into attacking, which allows us to control the flow of the battlefield. Ironically, despite being called the "Battle Seraph," Basandra works very well as a political commander with a lot of people. With the ability to force creatures, especially commanders with weak bodies like Riku of Two Reflections and Mizzix of the Izmagnus, we can help change the board state to our advantage. Simply put, Basandra feels like a pillow fort commander who is a nightmare for decks that have commanders that don't want to be attacking.

Creatures

Since we're playing a pillow fort strategy, Windborn Muse, Archangel of Tithes, and Blazing Archon dissuade or outright prevent our opponents from attacking us. However we also have other deterrents like Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Fumiko the Lowblood, and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight which make it very unappealing opponents to attack us.

Aside from our defensive position, we want to have bigger creatures like Aurelia, the Warleader and Iroas, God of Victory which will help us control the battlefield with strong creatures without the fear of combat tricks. Not to mention Goblin Diplomats and Goblin Spymaster to get people attacking each other. However, the one creature that will quickly change the game is Avatar of Slaughter. Once that hits the board, all negotiations, all deals, all politics go out the window, with us safely behind our defenses.

Sorceries

Whenever the board isn't developing the way we want, we always can fall back on good old-fashioned board wipes. Hour of Revelation and Blasphemous Act get to shine in games a lot of players, while Disrupt Decorum opens up the board to an all-out free for all.

Instants

Instants are mostly taken up by removal, such as Wear / Tear, Path to Exile, and Chaos Warp. Unfortunately, as long as we have Basandra out, we'll have to play honestly to and do them before combat.

Enchantments

Here is where we step up our pillow fort strategy. Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, and Lightmine Field all waste our opponent's resources if they want to attack us. However, an even better situation is when we get to force our opponents to waste their resources through Basandra's ability. However, one enchantment that deserves special attention is War's Toll which when paired with Basandra's ability wrecks our opponent's resources and board state.

Artifacts

Besides mana ramp and color fixing, the two cards that I think should be given attention are Crawlspace and The Immortal Sun. Both speed up our game and in way or another will shut down quite a few deck strategies.

Lands

Nothing really to note here, just your typical Boros land set up.

Basandra not very powerful as a commander or overall deck. As a pillow fort deck, Basandra is incredibly reliant is cards that prevent people from attacking her. Removing those with a Cyclonic Rift with basically destroy the deck's gameplay with no real way to recover quickly enough before its too late.

Commander Strength: D

Basandra overall is not the strongest commander out there. While it does have neat abilities and potential, its nothing earth-shattering. With stats that making it only a slightly better Serra Angel, Basandra's two abilities are the only things going for it.

Popularity: D

Currently, on EDHREC, there are only 109 decks made for Basandra, indicating a lack of interest, possibly due to its less then in-depth abilities or strategy. This is made further apparent considering it debuted in Magic: The Gathering Commander which produced some the most powerful and popular commanders to this day all the way back in 2011.

Deck Price: C

While buying the cards for the deck is pretty cheap for an average commander deck, buying the Heavenly Inferno set would be both a good investment, as well as an expensive one considering it has many powerful cards exclusive to that set.

Competitive Level: D

Basasandra lacks both stats and deck strategies to make it shine as a dual commander since there are other Boros commanders who are more inherently powerful like Aurelia, the Warleader and card:Kalmene, Disciple of Iroas. However, Basandra does have a certain niche in multiplayer games as the political foothold against combat tricks and combo-based commanders.

Versatility: E

As stated before, Basandra's abilities make it very difficult for to branch out from being anything but a pillow fort deck.

Developmental Potential: D

Keywords like Goad and poltical cards like this are not common and problably won't provide alot of growth for Basandra in the immediate future.

None so far
The format of presenting this commander deck is a combination of Tomer Abramovici's Budget Commander: Nicol Bolas and Nate Burgess's Commander Focus Edgar Markov articles. Both were a huge help in writing a clear and concise commander deck analysis. Check out their articles in the sources tab below.
[1] Beyer, D. (2011, June 22). Fifteen Commanders, Fifteen Tales. Retrieved April 29, 2018, from https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/savor-flavor/fifteen-commanders-fifteen-tales-2011-06-22

Brantley, M. (2017, July 10). Underdog's Corner - Basandra, Battle Seraph EDHREC. Retrieved May 6, 2018, from http://articles.edhrec.com/underdogs-corner-basandra-battle-seraph/

Magic The Gathering. (n.d.). HEAVENLY INFERNO - MTG COMMANDER - CARD SET ARCHIVE. Retrieved May 6, 2018, from https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/heavenly-inferno-mtg-commander-card-set-archive

Here is my second addition to the Magic: The Gathering Commander set. Since I've finished school I should be able to upload new decks on a more regular basis. Please like and let me know which set you want me to explore next.

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93% Casual

Competitive